Online and blended learning has growing quickly. Over the past ten years, it has grown an average of over 30% a year. A book titled, Disrupting Class, projects that by 2019, 50% of all high school courses will be online. Ambient Insight feels that by 2014, 10.5 million pre-K-12 students will attend classes online. At the same time, home schooling grew form around 800,000 students in 1999 to around 2 million in 2011. Researchers believe that home schooling and full-time online schooling will not substitute for mainstream schooling. They believe these non-traditional students will stop at 10% of the K-12 student population.
Online learning began when students needed an alternative to traditional learning. Students were in need of of advanced courses that they could not get at their current schools. Students were wanting a broader range of courses taught by qualified teachers that their small, rural, or urban schools could not offer. Also not being offered to students were remedial classes that would help them get back on track to graduate. Online learning also filled a need for home schooled students.
Blended learning environments mainly began to help with dropout-recovery or credit-recovery. But now more schools are integrating blended learning into their core curriculum. Since schools have to do more with less, some schools are using blended-learning to make up for teacher shortages and an increase in student achievement demands.
Online and blended learning has growing quickly. Over the past ten years, it has grown an average of over 30% a year. A book titled, Disrupting Class, projects that by 2019, 50% of all high school courses will be online. Ambient Insight feels that by 2014, 10.5 million pre-K-12 students will attend classes online. At the same time, home schooling grew form around 800,000 students in 1999 to around 2 million in 2011. Researchers believe that home schooling and full-time online schooling will not substitute for mainstream schooling. They believe these non-traditional students will stop at 10% of the K-12 student population.
Online learning began when students needed an alternative to traditional learning. Students were in need of of advanced courses that they could not get at their current schools. Students were wanting a broader range of courses taught by qualified teachers that their small, rural, or urban schools could not offer. Also not being offered to students were remedial classes that would help them get back on track to graduate. Online learning also filled a need for home schooled students.
Blended learning environments mainly began to help with dropout-recovery or credit-recovery. But now more schools are integrating blended learning into their core curriculum. Since schools have to do more with less, some schools are using blended-learning to make up for teacher shortages and an increase in student achievement demands.